Thursday, January 31, 2013

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has vindicated his critics thus far today in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Service Committee for the post of Secretary of Defense. He has stumbled in attempting to explain his positions on Iran, nuclear disarmament, Israel, the Iraq "surge," and the "Jewish lobby." He has failed to explain contradictions between his voting record and his past statements on the one hand, and the positions he professes today on the other. Even liberals and supporters of Hagel are openly lamenting his poor performance.

Democrats on the committee are doing their best to inflate Hagel's thin resumé (belatedly discovered by Politico) by mentioning his military service at every opportunity. But they cannot cover for Hagel's errors and evasions--and he has been ably pinned down by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and others. Hagel's performance has not only undermined faith in his views but faith in his competence. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whose recent support for Hagel was seen as guaranteeing his success, must be reconsidering his vote.
It is clear that Hagel's success is critically important to the Obama administration, which seems to have guided his pre-hearing visits with Senate critics and Jewish organizations, and used the Pentagon to lobby hard for his confirmation. The opening statement by two former Senate Armed Services Committee chairs, the bipartisan duo of Sam Nunn (D-GA) and John Warner (R-VA), was well orchestrated--though Warner's prediction that Hagel's own opening statement would answer every objection may have set expectations he could not possibly meet.

It is precisely because this nomination is so important to the White House, and the radical foreign policy it wishes to assert, that Hagel is still likely to win confirmation. The vote will not be about Hagel; it will be about Obama, and the current crop of Democrats has shown little will to dissent from the presidential line. But there is no way, partisan loyalty aside, that any reasonable person could watch Hagel's performance and still vote "yes." His past service may qualify him for many high government positions. Secretary of Defense--clearly--is not one of them.

Media Cheerleading in the Age of Obama:
The soft and at times obsequious interview Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” did with Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton) has received a lot of justifiable criticism. (Conor Friedersdorf demolishes Kroft ...

In his opening remarks at the Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Inhofe called Hagel's record "deeply troubling and out of the mainstream" - particularly with regards to Iran.

"In 2001, he was one of just two Senators whovoted against a bill extending harsh sanctions against Iran. A year later, he urged the Bush administration to support Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization," Inhofe recalled:

"He voted against a resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a group responsible for the killing of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan-a terrorist organization.

"And, on multiple occasions, he has advocated for direct negotiations with Iran-a regime that continues to repress its people, doggedly pursue a nuclear weapons capability, and employ terrorist proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, to threaten the security of Israel and the region."

Hagel's continuation of the Obama administration's first-term policies "will embolden our enemies, endanger our allies," Inhofe said while declaring Hagel "the wrong person to lead the Pentagon at this perilous and consequential time."

Defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel stated Iran has an “elected, legitimate government” and pointed out its membership in the United Nations, responding to a question Wednesday by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) about why he would consider negotiations with Iran in light of its terrorist connections:

HAGEL: Well, let’s start with a specific question on a vote, regarding designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. You recall, because you were there, there were 22 senators who voted against that. The effort against it — the main point made on the floor of the Senate came from Senator Jim Webb. And his point was we have never, ever designated a part of a legitimate government, a state — and when I say “legitimate,” that doesn’t mean we agree with Iran, but it is a member of the United Nations. Almost all of our allies have embassies in Iran. So that’s why I note — an elected, legitimate government, whether we agree or not. But we have never made any part of a legitimate, independent government, designated them or made part — made them part of a terrorist organization. We’ve just — we’ve never done that.

The 2009 election of Mahmound Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president was widely suspected to be rigged. The streets were filled with furious protestors who were eventually forced to accept the idea that, according to Vanity Fair, “the Iranian authorities managed to process all 39.2 million paper ballots between the close of polls at 10 p.m. local time and the next morning, when Iran’s Interior Ministry officially proclaimed Ahmadinejad the winner with 63 percent of the vote.”

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) denounced it as “clearly a corrupt election,” and the Washington Postpublished an article pointing out vast evidence of fraud that swayed the results toward Ahmadinejad.

This is not the first time Hagel has referred to Iran’s government as legitimate. In his 2008 book, Hagel said, “America’s refusal to recognize Iran’s status as a legitimate power does not decrease Iran’s influence, but rather increases it.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) today introduced a bill to replace the tax code with a 17% flat tax that would reduce tax returns to "the size of a postcard."

Shelby's Simplified, Manageable And Responsible Tax (SMART) Actestablishes a flat tax rate of 17 percent on all income (personal and business).

It also repeals estate taxes, gift taxes, and the Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM).

The only exemptions would be personal exemptions of:

$14,070 for a single person;

$17,970 for a head of household;

$28,140 for a married couple filing jointly; and

$6,070 for each dependent

These allowances would also be indexed to the consumer price index in order to prevent inflation from raising Americans' tax burden. To prevent the double-taxation of income, earnings from savings would not be included as taxable income, resulting in an immediate tax cut for virtually all taxpayers.

"With the SMART Act in place, taxpayers would file a return the size of a postcard," Shelby's office says.

"There would be no more long hours spent poring over convoluted IRS forms and no more fees paid for professional tax assistance."

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) might abandon a century of commitment to the moral development of youth. More than 100 million boys have taken the oath and learned self-reliance, patriotism, service and, most importantly, values through Scouting. After fending off attacks on these values from left-wing activists for decades, the organization on Monday raised a white flag in favor of political correctness — and corporate donations.

Deron Smith, a national Scout spokesman, signaled the retreat: “Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.” The statement came as a shock to many who supported the tradition-minded group through the relentless campaign of liberals seeking to separate Scouting from its core mission.

The Boy Scouts, like the military, is all about character formation. As a New Jersey court put it, “Boy Scouts expresses a belief in moral values and uses its activities to encourage the moral development of its members.” That’s what irks the left so much. Under the Scout Oath, a boy pledges “to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” These things fly in the face of the libertinism that has taken hold of leftists since the 1960s.

Under Obama, Stagnation Is New Normal:
So, U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly plunged in January to its lowest level in more than a year. The U.S. economy unexpectedly posted a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012 -- for the fir...

Over three programs and two days, ABC devoted 15 minutes to a fawning profile of Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday's Nightline, Cynthia McFadden even compared the outgoing Secretary of State to Thomas Jefferson, hinting that Clinton could follow his footsteps to the White House.

McFadden lauded, "There was a time not so very long ago when Hillary Clinton was seen as one of the most divisive figures in American politics." Noting Clinton's high approval rating, she announced this view was "changing." In an interview that, just coincidentally occurred in front of a statue of Jefferson, the reporter embarrassingly hyped, "As Jefferson looks over our shoulder, who I would only point out, was Secretary of State who went on to become president."

Do we need a Republican in the Oval Office for journalists to do tough, probing interviews? That would seem to be the implication of Steve Kroft's softball interview on CBS last Sunday with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf offered a brutal synopsis of the "60 Minutes" interview, demonstrating that Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, when given the chance to interview the world's most powerful man, asked far more insightful and useful questions that pressed Obama much harder than the storied newsmagazine program. In fact, Friedersdorf was probably too charitable about Kroft's star-struck performance.

Recently, we raised serious questions in this space about Clinton's tenure as the nation's top diplomat, pointing out that U.S. relations with much of the world have deteriorated under her watch and that she cannot claim any major accomplishments overseas.

Kroft was obsequiously deferential about her slender record: "[T]here's no big, singular achievement that -- in the first four years -- that you can put your names on. What do you think the biggest success has been, foreign policy success, of the first term?" Kroft then let Obama off the hook with the answer that he was winding down the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- an "accomplishment" that his predecessor had planned for roughly the same time frame.

With the election now over, it is once again safe to talk about the economy and jobs. Now that it is not a campaign issue, it’s back to reality.

Still in Democrat-supportive campaign mode, Williams thenintroduced a report by correspondent Harry Smith about how “the idea that manufacturing in America is dead … is an outright falsehood.” Mary Andringa, president and CEO of Iowa manufacturer Vermeer Corporation and then-board chair at the National Association of Manufacturers, told Smith:

What’s really outstanding is the fact that in 2010, the U.S. had an output of $4.8 trillion of manufactured goods. That was up from $4.1 (trillion) in 2000 — and we’ve been through two recessions in the past decade.

That is undoubtedly an impressive achievement which should not be discounted. But then Smith delivered the kicker:

Five million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. in the last decade. But new jobs have been created too, and believe it or not, many manufacturers in the U.S. are looking for hel

"Hey Joe," Santelli said, "when you act like Europe, you get growth rates like Europe, and our discussions with economists sounds like we're in Europe. They have the same discussions constantly."

"They’re always doing the right thing," he continued. "They’re always thinking they know better. And this is the kind of growth. We have become Europe. We are now Europe."
Steve Liesman pushed back, “We reduced federal spending, government spending by 15 percent. Which part of that’s not Europe don’t you get?”

“And why do we need to reduce government spending?” asked Santelli. “Because we run trillion dollar deficits for crying out loud.”

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a global audience of young diplomats Tuesday that her biggest regret is “the loss of American lives in Benghazi.”

“Certainly the loss of American lives in Benghazi was something that I deeply regret and am working hard to make sure we do everything we can to prevent,” she said in response to a question posed by a British Pakistani young woman during the Global Townterview at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, in a terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. Clinton recently testified before House and Senate Foreign Relations committees investigating the Benghazi attack.

With Weak Case, Hillary Shouts Louder:
An old-time trial lawyer once said, "When your case is weak, shout louder!"
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration's story last fall that ...

With Weak Case, Hillary Shouts Louder:
An old-time trial lawyer once said, "When your case is weak, shout louder!"
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration's story last fall that ...

Even as President Obama travels to Las Vegas Tuesday to call for legalizing illegal immigrants, the latest numbers from the U.S. Border Patrol suggest that the flow across the nation’s southwest border jumped by 9 percent last year.

The Border Patrol made 356,873 arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2012, up from 327,577 in 2011, according to figures obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by The Washington Times. Border Patrol officials estimate that apprehensions are a good proxy for illegal crossings, so when the numbers go up, it means that the flow of illegal immigrants is going up as well.

Last year’s increase marks a reversal. Apprehensions peaked in 2005 at 1.2 million and had been steadily dropping every year since as first President George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama committed more manpower and resources to the border.

In his first term Mr. Obama said he had fortified the border so much that it could now be deemed secure, and Congress could turn its attention to passing an overhaul of the broader immigration system.

The Bailouts That Never End:
What's worse? The existence of a government "pay czar" who dictates the salary of private-sector citizens or the corporate welfare queens who complain about having to deal wit...

Monday, January 28, 2013

(CNSNews.com) - House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) says if he and Mitt Romney had won the election, the deep, forced spending cuts known as sequestration would not happen because he and Romney would have worked with Democrats to arrive at a deficit-reduction deal.

But now?

"I think the sequester is going to happen," Ryan told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. He said the nation can't afford to lose the automatic $1.2 trillion in spending cuts through 2021. Those cuts, he said, were intended to pay for the 2011 debt ceiling increase, never mind the one now looming.

California boasts some of the world’s finest golf courses, but apparently that’s not enough to keep the pros happy. Phil Mickelson, winner of multiple championships, hinted at his intention to ditch the formerly Golden State because of its high-tax policies. The golfer’s comments prompted fellow champion Tiger Woods to say that taxes were what drove him out of California in the 1990s. The “sock it to the rich” policies ultimately result in lower tax revenues, bigger deficits and a declining standard of living as the wealthy pack their bags for more welcoming places.

California does have stunning landscapes, great weather, top universities, fabulous beaches and a lot more going for it. Because of this, bureaucrats in Sacramento believe they can charge residents a premium for the privilege of living there. Gov. Jerry Brown recently raised the top levy to 13.3 percent on those earning a million dollars a year, and he substantially boosted rates for six-figure earners as well.

Plenty of wealthy Californians are willing to pay this premium. Thousands of companies, including giants such as Google and Facebook, put up with the high taxes and onerous regulations because they depend on the high-tech talent base in such places as the Silicon Valley. Still, even wealthy liberals have to decide whether it’s worth it if taxes keep going up. It’s too early to tell whether the newly imposed 13.3 percent rate will be the tipping point, but anecdotal evidence suggests that pulling up stakes is on a lot of California minds.

Why History May Be Unkind to Geithner:
In "Timothy Geithner's Legacy,", Steven Rattner argues that history has vindicated the response of policy makers to the financial crisis. In my view, it is too soon to make that judg...

The Terrifying Mindset of Hillary Clinton:
Her words are already long gone from the daily flow; in fact, they never really resonated at all, were all but ignored by the mainstream media, and were characterized mor...

The Terrifying Mindset of Hillary Clinton:
Her words are already long gone from the daily flow; in fact, they never really resonated at all, were all but ignored by the mainstream media, and were characterized mor...

Current Policies Are Leading to a Big(ger) Bust:
It's basic cause and effect. Monetary inflation causes economic busts. And the larger the monetary inflation, the larger the bust. As brilliantly explained by the Austrians (see here), monetary ...

Sunday, January 27, 2013

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told a crowd of thousands of pro-life Americans gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the 40th annual March for Life on Friday that America is a nation “adrift" where "right and wrong have become subservient to the hedonism of the moment."

“Can a nation long endure that does not respect the sanctity of life?” Paul asked. “Can a nation conceived in liberty carry its head high if it denies protection to the youngest and most vulnerable of its citizens? Can a country founded on God-given rights continue to thrive without understanding that life is a precious gift from our Creator?

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

A Constitutional Lesson for Professor Obama:
President Obama's "recess" appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were ruled unconstitutional yesterday by a three-judge panel from the federal Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
<...

Palin: "We Haven't Yet Begun to Fight":
Andrew Breitbart embraced the Governor as a fellow warrior in the long struggle against a detached and venal political/media complex. He lives on in spirit and through the work of those he inspired...

Everyone Should See "Zero Dark Thirty":
Zero Dark Thirty, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow's new film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is weathering a storm of criticism. Critics overwhelmingly give the film positiv...

Illinois' Lessons for the Republican Party:
With President Barack Obama embarking on his second term, the Republicans have proceeded through their stages of grief:
•Denial. (He's just a wacky socialist.)
•Anger. (He was...

Though I think "celebrating" is a rank misnomer when it comes to this subject, the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Supreme Court decision that changed America forever, Roe v. Wade, has just gone by.

In those 40 years, some fifty-five million innocent unborn babies have been sacrificed on the alter of "a woman's right to choose."

Before we go any further, let me put a note to you people who always write me when I do an article on abortion and tell me how out of touch with the times I am and that a fetus is not a baby and that a woman should be able to decide if she wants to keep or destroy her unborn child.

Your problem is not with me; your problem is with Almighty God. And, if you don't believe in Him, you may as well stop reading right here, because none of the rest of this is going to make any sense and my humble opinion will mean nothing to you.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

World Is Right to Worry About US Debt: Many foreign observers look at the US budget shenanigans with confusion and dismay, wondering how a country that seems to have it all can manage its fiscal affairs so chaotically. The root problem is ...

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it -- James Madison.

Elections matter. And they matter most when a party on one side of the political and ideological spectrum succeeds a rival on the other side of the spectrum. Any doubt that just such a shift occurred in America in 2008 was dispelled when the Obamas put their fashion stamp on the Bushes’ Texas-style White House. Barack Obama promised at his first inauguration to transform America to a society more in line with liberal—I believe “progressive” is the word of choice these days—policies, and made huge progress towards that objective during his first term, converting the health care system to a government-run operation, reviving and applying Keynesian anti-recession nostrums, and expanding the welfare state.

Always, however, keeping in mind the need to seek reelection in a country more or less evenly divided between left and right. That moderation-inducing restraint now behind him, Obama has made clear where he plans to take the nation’s economy. And by forcing the Republican opposition to back down in the battle of the fiscal cliff, and again in the battle over the debt ceiling, the president has demonstrated, at least to his own satisfaction and that of his supporters, that he is astride the political field, if not quite like a colossus, at least like a man who can finish the job of transforming the economy into one more to his liking.

Those who have been complaining about uncertainty, and its negative effects on economic growth, need complain no more. You don’t have to read between the lines of the president’s second inaugural address, or consult your favorite pundit, to know where we are headed: you need only to have listened to or read the address itself.

Times have changed so that our “founding principles” must be applied to meet “new challenges.” That means a greater reliance on “collective action”—government—to make certain that “a shrinking few” do not claim a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth at the expense of a struggling middle class and the poor. What the president’s inaugural address lacked in the grandeur of those of many of his predecessors it amply made up for with candor.

Top of the agenda is reducing income and wealth inequality by raising taxes on upper income families by eliminating some of the deductions from which they benefit, and raising their tax rates. Obama believes what economists of the Left have been telling him, that inequality is not only in some sense unfair, but that it also stifles economic growth by denying middle class and poor families incomes they would spend and the richer would not. Never mind whether this makes sense: it represents a position increasingly trumpeted by respected academic and activist economists, and attractive in an era of frozen middle-class incomes.

President Obama has gone on the offensive at the beginning of his second term, and Republicans aren’t happy campers. Of course, every Republican camp is unhappy in its own way.

GRAPHIC RIVER

There are the lamenters. Shouldn’t Obama have been less partisan in his Inaugural Address? Who gave liberals the right to launch ideological offensives? Doesn’t Obama know this is a center-right country? Didn’t he learn any lessons from Bill Clinton? Beneath these rhetorical questions, of course, lurks the fear that Obama will succeed.

But he won’t. There’s no need to worry that Barack Obama will be a liberal Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s foreign and economic policies succeeded. Obama’s policies are failing, at home and abroad.

But will the public notice? This is the concern of the second camp, the despairers. Liberals will continue to get away with shortsighted policies, they think, because the American public that reelected Obama is demographically different from in the good old days; also, there are now more takers than makers; what’s more, voters today are moved only by their short-term comfort rather than by their self-interest properly understood. So Obama will get away with it, the GOP is finished, and America’s doomed.

Not so. Against a candidate who ran an exceedingly unimaginative campaign, Barack Obama won just over 51 percent of the vote. He’s no FDR, and today’s public actually shows considerable resistance to being seduced by the siren song of contemporary liberalism.

Friday, January 25, 2013

"What the US needs is not bigger government but a renewal of its commitment to limited but strong government; economic freedom, which is the only way to assure prosperity and individual liberty; and a moral and cultural system that strengthens the family, personal responsibility and the instincts for civic virtue."

35 States So Far Sue the Federal Government Regarding the Proposed 28th Amendment
Monday, January 14, 2013 19:00

(Before It's News)

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention. This will take less than 30 seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on. This is an idea that we should address. For too long, we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress.

Many citizens have no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term. The members of Congress specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest law exempts the members of Congress from the Healthcare Reform Act (or Obamacare) that passed in all of its forms. Somehow, that does not seem logical.

We do not have an elite class that is above the law. I truly do not care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or whatever. The self-serving acts of Congress must stop.

If each person that receives this message will forward it to 20 people, in three days most people in the United States of America will have received the message. This is one proposal that we should really pass around. The proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution states as follows:

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.

We should get this proposed amendment passed into law as soon as possible.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana delivered a hard-hitting address to the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee in Charlotte, NC yesterday. The speech was warmly received and has sparked interest and debate across the conservative media. Jindal’s basic point was that Republicans need to talk less about government and more about economic growth, less about Washington and more about America beyond the Beltway.

He is only half-right. The fact is that Republicans did not lose in 2012 because we talked about government too much and economic growth too little. Mitt Romney made growth and job creation the center of his campaign message; if anything, he spoke too rarely about the size and cost of government. His best line of the first debate, “trickle-down government,” was used once and barely featured again on the campaign trail.

Romney’s unique weakness, aside from his failure to connect to voters on a personal level, was that he could not make Obamacare the focus of his campaign, having made Romneycare the highlight of his governorship in Massachusetts. As Jindal is no doubt aware, opposition to Obamacare is what drove conservative voters to the polls in 2010 and caused independent voters to shift back over to the GOP, where they remain today.

Jindal’s suggestion that Republicans move beyond abstract ideas and start talking about the real lives of real people is long overdue. On the gun issue, for example, why has no one from the GOP or the NRA sought out the numerous elderly black people in Chicago who have used firearms--illegally--to defend themselves from burglars and thugs in neighborhoods where mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t or won’t keep the peace?

But Republicans can and should do that without abandoning the philosophical fight. The battle over the debt ceiling, for example,--what Jindal derided as an “obsession with zeros”--is critical. It is something to worry about, even if it is happening in Washington, because voters do understand that our national debt places our entire economy at risk. There already is one party that does not care about spending; we do not need another.

Jindal also seems to have accepted much of the false media critique of the party. If you only heard about his speech through the mainstream media, you would only know that he called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party.” He referred to “offensive and bizarre comments” in recent months, presumably Todd Akin’s statement on rape. Yes, Republicans must do better in the media, but the media’s generalization was absurd.

There are plenty of “stupid” Democrats, and stupid things said by smart Democrats. (Ask President Barack Obama what language Austrians speak.) Jindal himself, Rhodes scholar that he is, has some beliefs that some might have called "anti-science," including support for teaching creation in schools. Insulting Republicans achieves nothing but media notoriety: the question is not who is “stupid” but who is willing to defend liberty.

The Republican Party does need to face some hard truths, and Jindal deserves credit for encouraging a vigorous debate. Yet his address was the kind only a governor could give--optimistic about the impact of good policy, impatient with high-falutin’ principles. The immediate task facing Republicans is to prove to their own voters that they can provide strong opposition to Obama’s radical agenda. The “zeros” are here to stay.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit says Obama did not have the power to make recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board.

Obama claims he acted properly because the Senate was away for the holidays. But the court says the Senate technically stayed in session when lawmakers gaveled in and out every few days for so-called "pro forma" sessions.

Medicare payments to health care providers for services rendered to illegal aliens totaled more than $91.6 million from 2009 to 2011, a new report released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General revealed.

The $91.6 million in claims went toward services for a 2,575 illegal aliens. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) records, however, identified over 29,100 beneficiaries that were in the country illegally at some point in the timeframe the IOG investigated.

The inspector general’s office limited its audit to those 2,575 to look “at whether CMS had adequate controls to prevent and detect improper payments for Medicare services rendered to unlawfully present individuals.”

Federal regulations prohibit Medicare payments from benefiting people in the country illegally. Legal aliens are permitted to receive Medicare benefits.

The inspector general concluded that when CMS had data about the unlawful presence of a potential beneficiary, CMS’ controls were adequate to prevent payment. In many cases, however, CMS did not have information that a potential beneficiary was in the country illegally until after payment and did not have systems in place to recoup the $91.6 million.

The Obama administration has doubled down on its social-transformation agenda, unilaterally deciding to overturn longstanding policy and integrate women into combat roles in the military. Give the administration this much: Unlike the question of gay marriage, the issue of women in combat was never something that Barack Obama felt obliged to pretend to be against until it was politically safe to evolve on the matter. As a candidate in 2008, he signaled his intention to change the rules if elected president.

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta draped his announcement in the all-too-familiar language of “diversity,” but the U.S. military is neither a social-justice project nor a laboratory for feminist innovation: Its job is to secure the national-security interests of the United States, and neither Secretary Panetta nor the president nor any member of the administration has offered a single serious argument that this measure will increase our armed forces’ ability to do their job with maximum effectiveness. On the contrary, there are many reasons to believe it will accomplish the opposite.

The administration has promised that there will be no reduction of physical standards to accommodate women in combat roles, but that promise almost certainly is false — and Senator McCain, who has endorsed the move, should know better than to pretend otherwise. The political mandate to integrate women into the military had disastrous consequences for standards at West Point, as Walter Williams documented the last time we had this debate. The use of “gender-specific” physical standards meant that female candidates were given passing marks on tests when underperforming their male counterparts on such common benchmarks as push-ups, sit-ups, and running 1.5 miles.

This repeats the experience of similar civilian agencies, such as police and fire departments, in which standards have been lowered under the guise of revising them for professional relevance. One particularly comical feature of these developments has been the authorities’ insistence that they are acting independently of political pressure while simultaneously acknowledging that they are motivated by the fear of litigationbrought by feminist groups. The ideological absurdity at play here is hard to exaggerate: When members of the Los Angeles city council demanded hiring quotas for the LAPD and a consequent relaxation of standards, they argued that concerns about physical difference could be overcome by implementing a “feminist approach to policing.” We pray that we may be spared a feminist approach to national security.